Catnip Part 2
by lucindamellark
Summary: What would happen if the Hunger Games characters read the Hunger Games trilogy?


_I did not steal my idea from anyone. Or anything. I really liked the idea, and I hope you all like the story! I do not own anything._

"Is everyone done talking about Catnip yet? Or would you like to laugh some more?" I ask.

Everyone has been laughing for the past 10 minutes over the nickname "Catnip" that Gale gave me. Even Gale himself. The only ones that didn't laugh are me and Peeta. Peeta, I couldn't help but questioning. I wanted to know so much about him. Why? Beats me.

"Hey, let me read from here." Says Gale.

"Sure." I say, and pass him the book.

_My real name is Katniss, but when I first told him, I barely whispered it. So he thought I'd said Catnip. Then when this crazy lynx started following me around the woods looking for handouts, it became his official nickname for me. I finally had to kill the lynx because he scared off game. I almost regretted it because he wasn't bad company. But I got a decent price for his pelt._

"Of course. You just killed an animal and you care about the price you got for selling it? You sick excuse for a human being!" says Finnick.

"Excuse me?" says Peeta. Everyone starts to stare at him. "What? It's rude." He mutters, burying his face in his hands.

"_Look what I shot." Gale holds up a loaf of bread with an arrow stuck in it, and I laugh._

"How is that funny? You cannot shoot bread." Says Johanna.

"Of course! The both of you only talk about what you shoot! Your worse than a rabid animal," says Finnick.

"Finnick, I'm being sincere. Please shut up." Katniss says.

_It's real bakery bread, not like the flat, dense loaves we make from our grain rations. I take it in my hands, pull out the arrow, and hold the puncture in the crust to my nose, inhaling the fragrance that makes my mouth flood with saliva._

"A little too much information. I wonder what she's going to say next. "I then sneezed all over the bread, causing it to moisten and my face muscles to easily form into a frown. I then opened my mouth to apologize, pronouncing every vowel, costannant, letter, syllable-"

"BLOW UP!" Katniss shouts.

"What the heck? Blow up? What does that even mean?" says Finnick.

"It means that I would like you to blow up. So please, go ahead."

"Wow, Catnip is sassy." He says.

"Shut up. Just shut up. Or else I will find the highest cliff in this place and push you off it."

"I can yell for the security."

"Do you not get it? You'd be dead!"

"Oh."

_Fine bread like this is for special occasions. "Mm, still warm." I say. He must have been at the bakery at the crack of dawn to trade for it. "What did it cost you?" "Just a squirrel. _

"What did it cost you? Just a squirrel. That's it? Are you sure you didn't put a human in there too?" mocks Finnick.

"May I excuse myself?" Katniss asks. "I need to go and release my never-ending list of frustrations."

"No," Haymitch says, "You're staying put."

"Lovely." Katniss pouts.

_Think the old man was feeling sentimental this morning," says Gale. "Even wished me luck." "Well, we all feel a little closer today, don't we?" I say, not even bothering to roll my eyes. "Prim left us a cheese." I pull it out._

"What's "it"?" asks Finnick.

"The cheese." Rue responds.

"You don't say "a cheese" you say "cheese". "A cheese" sounds retarded. Haymitch, can you get me "a cheese "with "a cheese bread-" says Finnick.

"Ya, sure. Then I'll shove it up your "a cheese"-" starts Haymitch.

_His expression brightens at the treat. "Thank you, Prim. We'll have a real feast." Suddenly he falls into a Capitol accent as he mimics Effie Trinket, the manically upbeat woman who arrives once a year to read out the names at the reaping. "I almost forgot! Happy Hunger Games!" He plucks a few blackberries from the bushes around us. "And may the odds—"He tosses a berry in a high arc toward me._

"Happy Hunger Games?" questions Thresh, "Is there something wrong with you?"

"THANK YOU!" says Finnick, satisfied. "By the way, there's no telling if the mysterious berries are poisonous. Just saying,"

They have to hold Katniss back.

_I catch it in my mouth and break the delicate skin with my teeth. The sweet tartness explodes across my tongue. "—be _ever _in your favour!" I finish with equal verve. We have to joke about it because the alternative is to be scared out of your wits. Besides, the Capitol accent is so affected, almost anything sounds funny in it. I watch as Gale pulls out his knife-_

"And stabs her. End of story. By the way, why are you still alive?" asks Finnick.

This time she does get to him and kicks him hard in the shin. He yelps in pain and collapses in the mess beside him.

_-and slices the bread. He could be my brother. Straight black hair, olive skin, we even have the same gray eyes._

For some reason, the idea of this makes Peeta smile.

_But we're not related, at least not closely. Most of the families who work in the mines resemble one another in this way. That's why my mother and Prim, with their light hair and blue eyes, always look out of place. They are. My mother's parents were part of the small merchant class that caters to officials, Peacekeepers, and the occasional Seam customer. They ran an apothecary shop in the nicer part of District 12. Since almost no one can afford doctors, apothecaries are our healers. My father got to know my mother because on his hunts he would sometimes collect medicinal herbs and sell them to her shop to be brewed into remedies. She must have really loved him to leave her home for the Seam. I try to remember that when all I can see is the woman who sat by, blank and unreachable, while her children turned to skin and bones. I try to forgive her for my father's sake. But to be honest, I'm not the forgiving type._

"No, really?" Finnick yells from under the garbage pile he landed in.

"Blank and unreachable. She really did love him." Murmurs Peeta.

"Like father like daughter. You both love to kill things," says Johanna.

_Gale spreads the bread with soft goat cheese-_

"Goat cheese? As in cheese from a goat?" asks Finnick.

No one answers.

_Carefully placing a basil leaf on each while I strip-_

"Oooooo. What is going on here, young chickens?" asks Finnick.

"Young chickens. What the hell is a young chicken?" Gale asks.

"You and her."

_The bushes-_

"The bushes?" asks Finnick.

"SHUT UP!" everyone says.

_Of their berries. We settle back in a nook in the rocks. From this place, we are invisible but have a clear view of the valley, which is teeming with summer green life, greens to gather, roots to dig, fish iridescent in the sunlight. The day is glorious, with a blue sky and a soft breeze. The food's wonderful, with the cheese seeping into the warm bread and the berries bursting in our mouths. Everything would be perfect if this really was a holiday, if all the day off meant was roaming the mountains with Gale, hunting for tonight's supper. But instead we have to be standing in the square at two o'clock waiting for the names to be called out. "We could do it, you know" Gale says quietly._

Finnick is laughing so hard he looks like he might die from lack of oxygen.

"_What?" I ask. "Leave the district. Run off. Live in the woods. You and I, we could make it," says Gale. I don't know how to respond. The idea is so preposterous._

This makes Gale's face darken, and Peeta's face light up.

"_If we didn't have so many kids," he adds quickly._

This catches Peeta by surprise and he falls off his end of the couch.

_They're not out kids, of course. But they might as well be. Gale's two little brothers and a sister. Prim. And you may as well throw in our mothers, too, because how would they live without us? Who would fill those mouths that are always asking for more? With both of us hunting daily, there are still nights when game has to be swapped for lard or shoelaces or wool, still nights when we go to bed with our stomachs growling. "I never want to have kids," I say._

Finnick gasps dramatically, Peeta gets up, looking distressed, and Gale pouts.

"_I might. If I didn't live here," says Gale. "But you do," I say, irritated. "Forget it," he snaps back._

"Irritable, much." Says Finnick.

"What? I was just defending myself." Gale responds.

"Ya, like you were asking for something you know you couldn't have." Says Finnick.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but that is very true." Says Peeta.

"Shut up."

_The conversation feels all wrong. Leave? How could I leave Prim, who is the only person in the world I'm certain that I love? And Gale is devoted to his family. We can't leave, so why bother talking about it? And even if we did….even if we did….where did this stuff come from about having kids? There's never been anything romantic between me and Gale._

"Really?" asks Peeta, causing Gale to glare at him first then Katniss.

"Ya, really Katniss?" Gales asks.

"Um, why don't you finish reading?" Katniss asks.

_When we met, I was a skinny twelve year old, and although he was only two years older, he already looked like a man. It took a long time for even us to become friends, to stop haggling over every trade and begin to help each other out._

"If there was something romantic between you two, then you have a sick, sick mind Galenip." Says Finnick.

"I second that." Peeta says with a smirk.

"Galenip?" says Gale.

_Besides, if he wants kids, Gale won't have any trouble finding a wife. He's good-looking, he's strong enough to handle the work in the mines, and he can hunt._

By this point, Peeta already fell off the couch again, and so did Finnick, but Finnick was laughing so hard that Chaff pushed him off.

_You can tell by the way the girls whisper about him when he walks by in school that they want him. It makes me jealous but not for the reason people would think. Good hunting partners are hard to find._

"Oh, Galenip, you just got turned down by someone you didn't even ask OUT!" says Finnick.

"If you don't shut up, I swear, I'll hit you so hard you'll see tomorrow." Gale says to Finnick.

"Try it. I dare you," Finnick mocks.

They have to hold him back.

"_What do you want to do" I ask. We can hunt, fish, or gather. "Let's fish at the lake. We can leave our poles and gather in the woods. Get something nice for tonight." He says. Tonight. After the reaping, everyone is supposed to celebrate. And a lot of people do, out of relief that their children have been spared for another year. But at least two families will pull their shutters, lock their doors, and try to figure out how they will survive the painful weeks to come. We make out well._

"WHAT!" Finnick shouts, falling face first off the couch.

Peeta is now glaring at Gale like he's some rotten piece of fish.

_The predators ignore us on a day when easier, tastier pre abounds. By late morning, we have a dozen fish, a bag of greens and, best of all, a gallon of strawberries. I found the patch a few years ago, but Gale had the idea to string mesh nets around it to keep out the animals. On the way home, we swing by the Hob, the black market that operates in an abandoned warehouse that once held coal. When they came up with a more efficient system that transported the coal directly from the mines to the trains, the Hob gradually took over the space. Most businesses are closed by this time on reaping day, but the black market's still fairly busy. We easily trade six of the fish for good bread, the other two for salt. Greasy Sae, the bony old woman who sells bowls of hot soup from a large kettle, takes half the greens off our hands in exchange for a couple of chunks of paraffin. We might do a tad better elsewhere, but we make an effort to keep on good terms with Greasy Sae. She's the only one who can consistently be counted on to buy wild dog. We don't hunt them on purpose, but if you're attacked and you take out a dog or two, well, meat is meat. "Once it's in the soup, I'll call it beef," Greasy Sae says with a wink. No one in the Seam would turn up their nose at a good leg of wild dog, but the Peacekeepers who come to the Hob can afford to be a little choosier._

"Greasy Sae? To make soup like that, she must be psychotic "Sae". Wild dog…HA!" says Johanna

"The Hob. Ha, the Hob." Says Thresh

Finnick has broken out into another set of laughter, and Peeta is staring at Katniss with a shocked face.

_When we finish our business at the market, we go to the back door of the mayor's house to sell half the strawberries, knowing he has a particular fondness for them and can afford our price. The mayor's daughter, Madge, opens the door. She's in my year at school. Being the mayor's daughter, you'd expect her to be a snob, but she's all right. She just keeps to herself. Like me. Since neither of us really has a group of friends, we seem to end up together a lot at school. Eating lunch, sitting next to each other at assemblies, partnering for sports activities. We rarely talk, which suits us both just fine._

"What about Galenip, over here, or Peetanip, over there? Are they not your friends?" asks Finnick, innocently.

"Shut up, shut up! Do they look like girls to you?"

"Well, Peetanip doesn't, but Galenip could easily pass for a Galerella."

This time I wish he had gotten to Finnick.

"You sell your illegal products to authority?" asks Rue, eyes wide.

"There just strawberries." Katniss says defensively.

No one notices that Haymitch and Chaff are asleep and drunk until they both snore loudly. Peeta nudges them and they both are so alarmed that they jump on top of the couch.

_Today her drab school outfit-_

"Well, isn't that nice to call someone's outfit. Drab. Katniss, you look extremely drab today." Says Finnick.

_-has been replaced by an expensive white dress, and her blonde hair is done up with a pink ribbon. Reaping clothes._

"They have clothes for the reaping. That's rich." Says Johanna.

"_Pretty dress," says Gale. _

"Galenip has a crush, don't you Galenip? Sorry Catnip, looks like you've been outdone by an expensive white dress." Says Finnick.

_Madge shoots him a look, trying to see if it's a genuine compliment or if he's just being ironic._

"Ironic, Madnip, IRONIC!" Finnick shouts at the book.

_It is a pretty dress, but she would never be wearing it ordinarily. She presses her lips together and then smiles. "Well, if I end up going to the Capitol, I want to look nice, don't I?" Now it's Gale's turn to be confused._

"Ya, understandable. He's easily confused." Says Finnick.

_Does she mean it? Or is she messing with him? I'm guessing the second._

"Catnip is a smart lynx catcher, isn't she, you young chicken." Says Finnick.

"_You won't be going to the Capitol," says Gale coolly. His eyes land on a small, circular pin that adorns her dress. Real gold. Beautifully crafted. It could keep a family in bread for months. "What can you have? Five entries? I had six when I was just twelve years old."_

"There he goes, bragging" says Johanna.

"Catnip doesn't appreciate the beauty of the pin, no how ridiculous is that! She just wants to sell it for bread." Says Finnick

"_That's not her fault," I say. "No, it's no one's fault. Just the way it is," says Gale. Madge's face has become closed off. She puts the money for the berries in my hand. "Good luck, Katniss." "You, too," I say, and the door closes._

"You rude Galenip. You didn't even get a good luck!" says Finnick.

_We walk toward the Seam in silence. I don't like that Gale took a dig at Madge, but he's right, of course. The reaping system is unfair, with the poor getting the worst of it. You become eligible for the reaping the day you turn twelve. That year, your name is entered once. At thirteen, twice. And so on and so on until you reach the age of eighteen, the final year of eligibility, when your name goes into the pool seven times. That's true for every citizen in all twelve districts in the entire country of Panem._ _But here's the catch. Say you are poor and starving as we were._

"How are you poor and starving! As far as I hear, you go on a happy-go-hunting with wild dog and rabbits and eat them after! How thoughtful of you!" Finnick says.

Katniss, Gale, and Peeta don't say anything. They just would really like to punch him out.

_You can opt to add your name more times in exchange for tesserae. Each tessera is worth a meager year's supply of grain and oil for one person. You may do this for each of your family members as well. So, at the age of twelve, I had my name entered four times. Once, because I had to, and three times for tesserae for grain and oil for myself, Prim, and my mother. In fact, every year I have needed to do this. And the entries are cumulative. So now, at the age of sixteen, my name will be in the reaping twenty times. Gale, who is eighteen and has been either helping or single-handedly feeding a family of five for seven years, will have his name in forty-two times._

"The suspense!" shouts Finnick.

"I second that." Says Peeta.

"You both shut up." Says Gale.

"Likewise. Except just you." Says Peeta.

"You go, Peetanip." Says Finnick.

"Shut up." Peeta says.

_You can see why someone like Madge, who has never been at risk of needing a tessera, can set him off. The chance of her name being drawn is very slim compared to those of us who live in the Seam._

"Again with her precious Seam. There are kids in other Districts starving without food you know!" says Finnick.

"Get out." Says Katniss.

_Not impossible, but slim. And even though the rules were set up by the Capitol, not the districts, certainly not Madge's family, it's hard not to resent those who don't have to sign up for tesserae._ _Gale knows his anger at Madge is misdirected. On other days, deep in the woods, I've listened to him rant-_

Finnick has started to laugh again, and so as Peeta, so both of their faces are red. So is Gale's but that's just out of embarrassment.

_-about how the tesserae are just another tool to cause misery in our district. A way to plant hatred between the starving workers of the Seam and those who can generally count on supper and thereby ensure we will never trust one another. "It's to the Capitol's advantage to have us divided among ourselves," he might say if there were no ears to hear but mine._

"And the rest of this oval's ear also." Says Finnick.

"Oval?" asks Rue.

"Well, were not in a circle, so an oval." He responds.

_If it wasn't reaping day. If a girl with a gold pin and no tesserae had not made what I'm sure she thought was a harmless comment._

"If Galenip decides not to rant about how life isn't fair, genius. Cause it never is!" says Johanna.

_As we walk, I glance over at Gale's face, still smoldering underneath his stony expression. His rages seem pointless to me, although I never say so. It's not that I don't agree with him. I do. But what good is yelling about the Capitol in the middle of the woods? It doesn't change anything. It doesn't make things fair. It doesn't fill our stomachs. In fact, it scares off the nearby game. I let him yell though._

"I'd run away too, if I were game. "I hate the Capitol, blah, blab, My life sucks, blah, I need grain, blah, I'm fat, blah, blah, BLAH" says Finnick.

_Better he does it in the woods than in the district. Gale and I divide our spoils, leaving two fish, a couple of loaves of good bread, greens, a quart of strawberries, salt, paraffin, and a bit of money for each. "See you in the square," I say. "Wear something pretty," he says flatly._

"Ooo, Galenip's got a crush!" says Johanna.

"I'd be pretty would be going stark naked" says Finnick.

"Shut UP!" yells Gale.

_At home, I find my mother and sister are ready to go. My mother wears a fine dress from her apothecary days. Prim is in my first reaping outfit, a skirt and ruffled blouse._

_It's a bit big on her, but my mother has made it stay with pins. Even so, she's having trouble keeping the blouse tucked in at the back. A tub of warm water waits for me. I scrub off the dirt and sweat from the woods and even wash my hair. To my surprise, my mother has laid out one of her own lovely dresses for me. A soft blue thing with matching shoes._

"Poor Catnip isn't used to things like that, now is she?" says Finnick.

"_Are you sure?" I ask. I'm trying to get past rejecting offers of help from her. For a while, I was so angry, I wouldn't allow her to do anything for me. And this is something special. Her clothes from her past are very precious to her. "Of course. Let's put your hair up, too," she says. I let her towel-dry it and braid it up on my head._

Gale and Peeta have a sudden interest with their feet while Finnick's eyes are bulging out of his head from laughing.

_I can hardly recognize myself in the cracked mirror that leans against the wall. "You look beautiful," says Prim in a hushed voice._

"You always do…."Peeta mumbles.

"_And nothing like myself," I say._

"There she goes again with the negativity! I swear whenever you walk, a rainstorm hits another district." Says Finnick.

_I hug her, because I know these next few hours will be terrible for her. Her first reaping. She's about as safe as you can get, since she's only entered once. I wouldn't let her take out any tesserae. But she's worried about me. That the unthinkable might happen. I protect Prim in every way I can, but I'm powerless against the reaping. The anguish I always feel when she's in pain wells up in my chest and threatens to register on my face. I notice her blouse has pulled out of her skirt in the back again and force myself to stay calm. "Tuck your tail in, little duck," I say, smoothing the blouse back in place._

"Did you just call her a duck?" asks Chaff.

"A duck. Wow. Catnip can hug?" says Finnick.

_Prim giggles and gives me a small "Quack." "Quack yourself," I say with a light laugh. The kind only Prim can draw out of me. "Come on, let's eat," I say and plant a quick kiss on the top of her head. The fish and greens are already cooking in a stew, but that will be for supper. We decide to save the strawberries and bakery bread for this evening's meal, to make it special we say. Instead we drink milk from Prim's goat, Lady, and eat the rough bread made from the tessera grain, although no one has much appetite anyway._

"Catnip can laugh too. Wow. What has happened to this world?" asks Finnick.

_At one o'clock, we head for the square. Attendance is mandatory unless you are on death's door. This evening, officials will come around and check to see if this is the case. If not, you'll be imprisoned. It's too bad, really, that they hold the reaping in the square — one of the few places in District 12 that can be pleasant._

"We get shot" says Finnick, "What about the woods? Can't they be pleasant?" he asks.

_The square's surrounded by shops, and on public= market days, especially if there's good weather, it has a holiday feel to it. But today, despite the bright banners hanging on the buildings, there's an air of grimness. The camera crews, perched like buzzards on rooftops, only add to the effect. People file in silently and sign in. The reaping is a good opportunity for the Capitol to keep tabs on the population as well. Twelve- through eighteen-year-olds are herded-_

"She talks of them like their cows. Being herded in" says Johanna.

_-the young ones, like Prim, toward the back. Family members line up around the perimeter, holding tightly to one another's hands. But there are others, too, who have no one they love at stake, or who no longer care, who slip among the crowd, taking bets on the two kids whose names will be drawn. Odds are given on their ages, whether they're Seam or merchant, if they will break down and weep. Most refuse dealing with the racketeers but carefully, carefully. These same people tend to be informers, and who hasn't broken the law?_

"I don't know. Really. NORMAL PEOPLE!" shouts Finnick.

_I could be shot on a daily basis for hunting, but the appetites of those in charge protect me. Not everyone can claim the same._ _Anyway, Gale and I agree that if we have to choose between dying of hunger and a bullet in the head, the bullet would be much quicker. The space gets tighter, more claustrophobic as people arrive. The square's quite large, but not enough to hold District 12's population of about eight thousand. Latecomers are directed to the adjacent streets, where they can watch the event on screens as it's televised live by the state. I find myself standing in a clump of sixteens from the Seam. We all exchange terse nods then focus our attention on the temporary stage that is set up before the Justice Building. It holds three chairs, a podium, and two large glass balls, one for the boys and one for the girls. I stare at the paper slips in the girls' ball. Twenty of them have Katniss Everdeen written on them in careful handwriting. Two of the three chairs fill with Madge's father, Mayor Undersee, who's a tall, balding man, and Effie Trinket, District 12's escort, fresh from the Capitol with her scary white grin, pinkish hair, and spring green suit. They murmur to each other and then look with concern at the empty seat. Just as the town clock strikes two, the mayor steps up to the podium and begins to read. It's the same story every year. He tells of the history of Panem, the country that roseup out of the ashes of a place that was once called North America. He lists the disasters, the droughts, the storms, the fires, the encroaching seas that swallowed up so much of the land, the brutal war for what little sustenance remained. The result was Panem, a shining Capitol ringed by thirteen districts, which brought peace and prosperity to its citizens. Then came the Dark Days, the uprising of the districts against the Capitol. Twelve were defeated, the thirteenth obliterated. The Treaty of Treason gave us the new laws to guarantee peace and, as our yearly reminder that the Dark Days must never be repeated, it gave us the Hunger Games._

"Oh, yay. Interesting. Please, tell me more so I can fall asleep." Says Finnick.

"Same here" says Johanna, pretending to nod.

We've all heard this before.

_The rules of the Hunger Games are simple. In punishment for the uprising, each of the twelve districts provide one girl and one boy, called tributes, to participate. The twenty-four tributes will be imprisoned in a vast outdoor arena that could hold anything from a burning desert to a frozen wasteland. Over a period of several weeks, the competitors must fight to the death. The last tribute standing wins. Taking the kids from our districts, forcing them to kill one another while we watch — this is the Capitol's way of reminding us how totally we are at their mercy. How little chance we would stand of surviving another rebellion. Whatever words they use, the real message is clear. "Look how we take your children and sacrifice them and there's nothing you can do. If you lift a finger, we will destroy every last one of you. Just as we did in District Thirteen."_

Finnick's face was pale, along with everyone else's. No one liked the Hunger Games. Who could?

_To make it humiliating as well as torturous, the Capitol requires us to treat the Hunger Games as a festivity, a sporting event pitting every district against the others. The last tribute alive receives a life of ease back home, and their district will be showered with prizes, largely consisting of food. All year, the Capitol will show the winning district gifts of grain and oil and even delicacies like sugar while the rest of us battle starvation. "It is both a time for repentance and a time for thanks," intones the mayor. Then he reads the list of past District 12 victors. In seventy-four years, we have had exactly two. Only one is still alive. Haymitch Abernathy, a paunchy, middle-aged man, who at this moment appears hollering something unintelligible, staggers onto the stage, and falls into the third chair. He's drunk. Very._

"How nice is that! I am not paunchy. I am drunk, but not paunchy."

"Really, because I'm seeing a lot of 'paunchy' here." Says Finnick.

_The crowd responds with its token applause, but he's confused and tries to give Effie Trinket a big hug, which she barely manages to fend off. The mayor looks distressed. Since all of this is being televised, right now District 12 is the laughingstock of Panem, and he knows it. He quickly tries to pull the attention back to the reaping by introducing Effie Trinket. Bright and bubbly as ever, Effie Trinket trots-_

"Is she a horse?" asks Finnick.

"NO!" shouts everyone.

_to the podium and gives her signature, "Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor!" Her pink hair must be a wig because her curls have shifted slightly offcenter since her encounter with Haymitch. She goes on a bit about what an honor it is to be here, although everyone knows she's just aching to get bumped up to a better district where they have proper victors, not drunks who molest you in front of the entire nation. Through the crowd, I spot Gale looking back at me_

"Of course he is" says Finnick, causing Gale to glare at him.

_with a ghost of a smile. As reapings go, this one at least has a slight entertainment factor. But suddenly I am thinking of Gale and his forty-two names in that big glass ball and how the odds are not in his favor. Not compared to a lot of the boys. And maybe he's thinking the same thing about me because his face darkens and he turns away. "But there are still thousands of slips," I wish I could whisper to him. It's time for the drawing. Effie Trinket says as she always does, "Ladies first!" and crosses to the glass ball with the girls' names. She reaches in, digs her hand deep into the ball, and pulls out a slip of paper. The crowd draws in a collective breath and then you can hear a pin drop, and I'm feeling nauseous and so desperately hoping that it's not me, that it's not me, that it's not me. Effie Trinket crosses back to the podium, smoothes the slip of paper, and reads out the name in a clear voice. And it's not me._

Everyone releases their breath, but Finnick is still waiting.

_It's Primrose Everdeen._


End file.
